Grocery therapy

So.... money is a little tight just now - don't you hate it when you don't budget adequately for the beginning of the month and all those payments? - and I just happened to get some cash for a uniform deposit refund. Refunds are sneaky and nice like that. Anyway, I thought to myself, I am just going to use this cash that I have to buy a few groceries until we get paid again (or find out that we actually have more money left than anticipated. I can dream, right?). Okay, so I guess the real scoop is that I wanted to make this amazing chocolate peanut butter cake for my husband's birthday and didn't want to spend "regular" grocery money getting the extra ingredients we didn't already have.

It took kind of a lot of guestimating and pre-planning, but I gave myself 30 dollars to spend and I spent almost a whole dollar less. Even with a few substitutions. PS I love buying food in bulk - even if it's the same price as what is prepackaged, I can buy just as much of it as I need. I guess that whole "pay with cash helps you save money" thing is true... but I don't know if I'll keep doing it. I seem to recall my mom getting actual grocery money from my dad when he got paid, so maybe that's something we can do. We don't ever have cash, and it's less convenient especially when you start using change, too, but I really thought about what I was getting and passed by things that we miiiight have needed in the future, but maybe would have only been a luxury.

Well, I was proud of myself.

Now all I need to do is tackle the kitchen the way I tackled the grocery list. I'm not really looking forward to dealing with some of the things I pulled out of the refrigerator. Or taking out what looks like a heavy garbage bag.... I'm such a wimp, especially since pregnancy (though admittedly I probably was before then, too).

Now for something completely different!

Okay, so I don't think my hubby reads this, but in case he does I'll be a little cryptic. Part of the reason I wanted to save money on groceries, in addition to paying rent and insurance, is so that I could do a little secret something special for his birthday. Just little things, mostly, but I didn't know where the money could come from. Well, the beginning of the school year came around, so I thought, hey! My textbooks! I should be able to sell those to students. However, several attempts at selling the books fell through, and the arrangements for the secret weren't lining up as fast as I'd hoped and, well, I got a little discouraged. Should I give up on the secret? Should I not plan on having any extra money from textbooks?

Well, I'm still waiting, but things are looking up. I got emailed three times about the same book (which is actually kind of distressing - what if the first person doesn't get back to me and the others find another means to get the book?), and I realized that some people might not have added all their classes yet. There's still some hope on that front. And I've gathered a little more on my secret, so as long as I don't procrastinate too much it should work out (speaking of which.... maybe I'll tackle that next instead of the kitchen :-D).

It's funny, too, because while I was discouraged, I remember thinking about a lesson from Sunday about trials and how sometimes hard things precede really good things. Not that it was excruciatingly hard or anything, but I wondered if perhaps I should just trust that things would get better if I kept trying. Maybe it wouldn't work out the way I hoped, but there was no reason to give up.... well, I'm glad I didn't. Even if the secret only goes as far as what I have now, I'm sure Gary will love it. Even if I don't sell my textbooks immediately, we'll get by. The future? I see many more financial difficulties to come (read: childbirth!), and for the moment, I'm sure we'll get through them somehow. It's a good feeling.

Sunday's the day to blog

At least, that's what blogger told me this morning when I found significantly more unread blogs than usual. Maybe it's just this weekend. Big things are starting to happen all around (getting ready for the school year, for whatever reason) and hey, let's blog about it!

Not much exciting is going on on this front, actually. I had my last day of work yesterday (an odd feeling, let me tell you), and the next big thing on my agenda is giving birth.

Yes. Giving birth.

Whew. It makes me a tiny bit nervous, especially because I don't know when it will happen. I think our baby will probably be overdue, because that's how my mom was (and I think Gary's mom might have been, though not as bad), but as I think I've mentioned, our baby has health concerns. She seems to be doing fine, but what if the doctors don't want to let her go past 38 weeks? Actually, from what I've read about being induced, I might not go along unless it's really a medical hazard for her to keep chillin' in there.

So maybe my concerns are for naught. BUT the reason I kind of panic a little is because the doctors I see keep throwing around 36 weeks like I will barely make it that far. And people, 36 weeks is TWO WEEKS AWAY. I don't think I'm ready to have a baby in two weeks. I don't think I'm really ready to have one in 6 weeks, but at least I think I'll be more physically prepared... since I've stopped working I'm hoping I'll use the time to pack away little things in the freezer, to finish organizing the baby's room, and pick up a few extra necessities (like nursing clothes, because let's face it: not having them would be like leaving on vacation and forgetting to pack underwear. It would be better for everyone to get these things before hand).

Well, at least I have my actual doctor appointment tomorrow, so I can ask some questions and hopefully not have to worry so much. In the meantime, my poor hubby got called in to work and I have a cake in the oven (for when he gets home!) and a few more things I'd like to do while it's baking/cooling. Like washing dishes.

And putting together something for our child to sleep in. You know, just in case....

Happy anniversary

Well, my hubby and I have been married a year now. It's been kind of a funny weekend, full of work and not a ton of celebration, but I would say it's been fun nonetheless. Gary awesomely bought me a sewing machine, and I somewhat less awesomely got him a CD that he wanted a while back and the Star Trek: Next Generation movies on blu-ray (in a box set - he's really big on box sets).

I think my favorite part of our prolonged celebration was Saturday night, after we had gone out to eat. We ended up sitting in the second bedroom which I had gutted the day before, so all sorts of stuff was scattered across the room. We just looked at old stuff from our respective pasts - some of my high school things, a few things from his missions, these funny "commercials" he had recorded... It was pretty fun. Even if sitting on the floor got very uncomfortable after a while.

It's funny to think, though, that if we do that in years to come, more and more of that stuff we look at will be our mutual past. While I don't expect us to share equally in everything or consider certain things "mine," the memories will be shared to a certain degree. That'll be fun, too.

A quiet fear

I'm not sure why I was thinking about it this morning, but I was reflecting on the end of my mission. Specifically, this stretch of almost four months where life was pretty much one big headache. Literally - my head hurt almost every single moment of every day.

It was a mystery. I saw a doctor at least three times. I was getting pressure near the end to get a CT scan. Instead, a doctor gave me some chronic pain medicine. Eventually the headaches began to ebb away until sometime last summer I began to feel like I was living a normal life again. It's not that I had headaches constantly until that time... but I felt like my headaches were still more frequent and I felt debilitated when I had them until sometime last summer.

I remember, probably during early pregnancy when I felt yucky and nauseas anyway, crying to my husband during an intense headache because I worried that the pain wouldn't go away. Fortunately most of my headaches are now run-of-the-mill, go away in a few hours, usually helped by drugs kind of headaches, and if they happen more than  few times a week I don't even think about it because they're pretty mild.

However... I really feel like some day it will happen again. We never did figure out why I was having so many headaches (I never did get any scans or anything). I live with a quiet fear that I will ever feel the way I did during those months ever again. You wouldn't really consider a mission to contain the darkest moments of your life, but I guess considering the lack of personal trauma that I've experienced, I have never felt worse than I did during that time. And I never want to feel that way again.

Sorry if that was depressing. I just wanted to get it off my chest. Maybe it's because I was looking at some mission things last night - always bittersweet, because of how it ended.

On the bright side, life is pretty wonderful right now. The sun is shining, we have air conditioning, and I have a wonderful husband to take care of me. And we're having a baby. :-)

Ultrasound

Today was my monthly trip up to the hospital to have an ultrasound. And I'm happy to report that everything is going well! I mean, everything else. Her kidneys aren't much bigger and everything else is developing just fine. Her (well... my) fluid is great, and she's big for her age. Now, the nurse/technician said that she is 1 week and 2 days "ahead," which probably means that she's that much bigger than babies typically are, but I'm sort of secretly hoping that means she'll come just a little sooner than her due date. I'm not super sure about my mother in law, but my mom had babies way late... as in, I think I came soonest to my actual due date and that's because the doctors induced her ten days after I was due. Whew. And both sides of the family have a history of big babies. Maybe if she came sooner she wouldn't be quite so massive? I mean, she's still got a good two months and she's already 4 pounds.

When the technician was looking at the heart, she pointed out that it was difficult to see because of shadows being cast by Baby's bones. She informed me that as the bones calcify and become harder, they cause a "shadow" because the ultrasound technology doesn't see through them. Cool! I mean, it could have been inconvenient because she really needed to see the heart, but fortunately our little girl is a mover and so they were able to get the images they needed.

Speaking of our little mover... The doctor came in to take a look also and right near the end, Baby gave a little kick. She went "whoa!" and later said it felt like she was beating me up in there. I informed her that the kick she felt really wasn't that hard at all... just typical baby movement to me. So it turns out that our child just really likes to move. Or hit me. Last night while I was lying in bed, she practically exploded. It really felt like she punched me with all the force her little body could. I wonder if she gets upset with me, or if she's just saying hi.

And, friendly aside, I really liked this doctor. She was friendly, informative, and encouraging. She believes Baby should come to term just fine (what she actually said was that "we will grow the baby" until at least 36 weeks), the check-ups are just precautionary to make sure her kidneys don't fail. Which I totally appreciate. And she encouraged me to call the doctor that I will be going to see after she's born - and part of the reason I hadn't called was that it almost seemed like I was discouraged last time I went, as if that doctor wouldn't have much to say to me until the baby was born. Anyway. I always like good doctors, instead of what seem to me to be 'routine' doctors. She also pointed out that I could get my weekly fluid/heart rate test at my clinic if I wanted, instead of at the hospital, which would be nice since the copay is twice as much at the hospital.

While it's intimidating to think of being new parents, I'm mostly excited to have our little baby girl. She might have a rough first few months, and poor Gary might be stressed out of his mind with work and school and baby complications, but... it's going to be so much fun to have her outside of my belly and in our arms. Just two more months!!

Hello, Friday

Weekends are kind of a funny thing for me. I love them like the next person, though I do usually end up working for a short time on Saturday. (And you know, working just makes it feel not like a Saturday.) This weekend is especially odd: for one thing, I have a final on Monday that I keep feeling like I really ought to study for. I mean, why am I blogging when I could be studying for my final? (Oh, yeah, maybe it's cause I've spent the past few days trying really hard to do a couple journal article reviews. My lack of motivation is incredible.) On the other hand, though, I have a final on Monday, meaning that Monday is my last day of class. And it's not even really a day of class... it's just getting together for convenience of proctoring the fact that we'll all be sitting around for over 90 minutes typing away.

I'm kind of sad about it.

Not to say that I'll miss homework, because I won't. But I enjoyed the teacher, my class mates, the material... and while I like that it was short and thus relatively easier, I'm kind of sad that it was so short and I won't be taking classes for... umm... a while. I'd wonder if I'll feel like this at graduation, but I'm hoping I'll be sufficiently immersed with our little girl that I'll be happy to finally be finished. Preparing for our little girl could keep me sufficiently entertained, I think, except that I keep stressing about my class. I have this sort of weird philosophy (that really isn't true and I know it) that if I don't let myself get very involved in non-homework activities, that I'll somehow start doing my homework. Lots of cleaning? Can't, I've got homework. Trip to the grocery store? Maybe after I've done my homework. Here's how I go completely off the deep end, though: I stay on or around my computer. Homework? Maybe after I watch this youtube clip. Or check facebook (again). Or read a blog entry.... yeah. I think I was on drugs when I decided that was a useful way to do homework.

Hello tangent! So anyway, I'm sad that school is ending. But I am pretty happy that I'll be able to focus some attention elsewhere. Like the dishes. And the nursery. Oooh the nursery.

Here's hoping I use the new-found freedom well.

Self-reflection

Technically family studies, my major, is an "easy" major. It isn't very credit-heavy and with my emphasis the required courses are pretty flexible (take twelve credit hours within the major that are 300-level or above - that is one of my requirements). For many, it's a plan B to graduate sooner of if they don't get into a first-choice major. I guess it technically was for me when I realized I didn't actually want to major in what I was doing, but it wasn't because it was easy... it was cause I liked it.

And, you know, in a way it isn't that easy. It's a very personal major, at least my emphasis. From the very basic classes to the more advanced ones I'm choosing now, we are required almost every day in class and in assignments to reflect on our own family situations - what was good, and what wasn't so good. That can be surprisingly difficult. The class I'm in now, forming marital relations, is no different, except that I also look into the future a little and not just the past. It's interesting taking this class without my husband, because I sort of wish he knew what I knew about what is generally a good idea for couples.

It's hard enough to look back on family rituals and think about what we could have done better, knowing that it's in the past. It's even harder to look at current events and think about what we could be doing better now, yet noting that it isn't generally a good idea to be the know-it-all in a relationship. I hope I remember that when we're raising children, too, that just because I took a child development class doesn't mean I know everything.

That said, my husband came home and was on the phone, which sometimes distresses me and I was tempted to just keep doing what I was doing, even though I like to get a hug and a kiss when he comes home. I decided to just go over and hug him anyway and he just kept giving me a million quiet kisses, as if to let me know that he was aware I might be distressed but he really did love me. He's pretty great. And he doesn't even have to take the class. :-)

And I suppose that's the benefit of doing all this research: I see a lot of the bad and unfortunate things in relationships... and I realize how good we have it. Sure, marital satisfaction is usually pretty high the first few years (though it does tend to dip after childbirth), but I mean... indicators of unstable relationships start before marriage. We seem to be doing pretty good. And I am really, really happy.